


If It Ain't Got That Swing

by Nebulad



Series: Here Comes The General [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fluff, Parties, origin story?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7247065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Cherry? My hat’s slipping.” She looked down from her vantage on Preston’s shoulders, plucking his hat off his head and placing it neatly on her red curls. He grinned up at her and maybe it was her imagination but she was almost certain there was a power surge for a second. Her fingertips felt electric and she grinned back.</p><p>“Problem solved. How you holding up there sugar?” she asked, reaching up to finish the last string of fairy lights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Ain't Got That Swing

The Castle cleaned up _real nice_ when it wasn’t just Cherry fixing the place up. Minutemen wandered around, laughing and talking and setting up tables and a properly lit up dancefloor. Ronnie, of course, was directing them around like they were meant to be running drills, but it didn’t get anybody down.

She went over her mental list of what she had to check on. After she finished setting up the lights around the base walls, she had to wander back to the kitchen to check on the chefs and make sure they had enough material to work with. From there she wanted to make sure that the guards knew their rotation shift for the party, and that all their usual stations were set up with something sweet to tide them over until they were replaced.

The kiddie area was coming along, she could see— not a whole lotta kids around the Castle except Shaun and a few wasters who’d found their way over with their parents— and she wanted to make sure there was something _other_ than snack cakes and Nuka around there. For Shaun it… probably didn’t matter, but the others had real human stomachs and they could all use some structure in their lives that was less military.

“Cherry? My hat’s slipping.” She looked down from her vantage on Preston’s shoulders, plucking his hat off his head and placing it neatly on her red curls. He grinned up at her and maybe it was her imagination but she was almost certain there was a power surge for a second. Her fingertips felt electric and she grinned back.

“Problem solved. How you holding up there sugar?” she asked, reaching up to finish the last string of fairy lights. Her goal wasn’t to light up Castle like a Hollywood shindig, but it did get pretty dark when the sun sank so she wanted to keep the party going as late as it wanted to go. The Minutemen damn well needed to celebrate something and… maybe she was finally ready for it.

The occasion was, of course, the destruction of the Institute and the reaffirmation of the Minutemen as defenders of the weak. It was a long time coming, truthfully, as she’d put off any sort of celebrating until she thought she could really face herself down knowing that point of this party was to remind the Commonwealth that her son was finally dead. She’d told Shaun— the synth— that he didn’t have to go if it upset him, but in the end he’d only encouraged her to face the celebration head on. _It’s okay, I’ll go. I don’t think anyone here is going to be partying because they’re glad that Doctor Holdren died, or they’re glad the synth that was broken and just kept talking about taking baths died. They’re happy because the Institute was doing bad things and it’s gone now— they don’t understand what had to happen to keep them safe._

Preston brought her back down to reality, where there was party prep to be doing. “All’s fine down here, General.” She didn’t doubt that— she could’ve got a ladder for this job but it was too tempting to see how strong his shoulders were. She had her answer and it was satisfying.

“I’ll get down off you anyway, sweetness. Gotta go check on Diane in the kitchen working all those poor chefs to death.” She was sort of ungraceful about it and they wobbled dangerously, but her feet ended up on the ground instead of her face and she counted that as a win.

“Anything I can do?” he asked, dusting her off a little and playfully pulling back his hat. She smiled up at him and he kissed her impulsively, like he just remembered that he could. There was a wolf whistle from whoever was setting up chairs, and Preston took off his hat again to block their view.

“I trust your judgement honey. You go ahead and help me make sure this is gunna take off and I’ll catch you when we start,” she said, breathed just away from his mouth. He grinned and god if there was a prettier sight in the wasteland she hadn’t seen it yet.

“Yes ma’am,” he teased, and she swatted him. If he kept up the flirting it was gunna get real hard to do her job, and then she’d hear about it from Ronnie later.

. . . . .

Despite her luck and despite every expected scenario, the party was really taking off. People were drunk but not wasted, not breaking shit or making asses of themselves. The radio operator was blasting every track he had on him and people were _alive._ They were alive when they were farming or fighting or patrolling but this here was _life._

Cherry was nursing a beer when Preston found her for the first time since the settlers got into the food. He seemed to be having a goddamn blast, and she’d seen more than one settler drunkenly gush over him. Despite the embarrassment— and he was most definitely embarrassed about it but more pleased that people were looking up to the Minutemen again— he was having a great time. No one’d really had grounds for a great time since Quincy.

“Hey babe.” His arm snaked around her and she put down her drink so he could pull her in tight. “Got a look at the music coming up— they’ve got some Ella Fitzpatrick and Duke Ellington.” He stopped there which was troubling because she didn’t quite know what that meant. She knew _of_ them, sure. “You wanna dance?” he asked after a second, and she laughed— maybe a bit nervously.

“Dance?” Like she was unfamiliar with it. She wasn’t— quite. It was only just that war measures had snapped into place in her early teens, so when she would’ve been out dancing… well what with prohibition and the communist terror, clubs got less and less popular. They were driven further and further underground until most were speakeasies and her lawyer mother wouldn’t let her even think the word _speakeasy_ around her. She didn’t necessarily disapprove, but if there was ever a place where the soldiers were gunna hurt people, it was where their stupid laws were getting broken.

So… no, not too much practice in the way of dancing.

“You don’t have to.” He was quick to reassure her, and she shifted around a little because dancing with Preston sounded like pretty much the perfect night, if she could swing it (there was a pun in there somewhere). It was sort of odd— she hadn’t thought anyone in the wastes would have much time for dancing either.

“Where on earth did you learn how to dance?” she asked, and he grinned in that bashful sort of way like he got with the settlers.

“Grandma Garvey. She’s prewar, actually, like you; older though— her and Grandma Helen already had their son Milton when the bombs dropped. They found shelter and started to rebuild a life in the chaos. Grandma Garvey and Helen went ghoul, but their son stayed human. Milton went on to have kids, and those kids had kids, now the whole Garvey clan is scattered all across the Eastern Commonwealth. I grew up with Grandma Garvey and was one of the only grandkids who’d put down toys long enough to dance with her, so she taught me everything I know.” That was probably the least surprising thing she’d heard all day and it was still collapsing her damn chest.

“You’re just perfect, you know that?” she asked, and he laughed. “Afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you though.” She was certain, actually. Without any proper social setting— hell by the time she’d hit high school the kids weren’t even allowed to have school dances anymore— Cherry turned to sports. She got fit and rough and unknowingly ready for the violence of the wasteland (as ready as one _could_ be) but dancing wasn’t quite on her card.

“I could teach you if you wanted?” he offered, his arms still around her. “It’s not too hard once you get going, actually, and you’ve already got a good sense of rhythm.” He _wanted_ it and she could see it— right in his warm brown eyes she could see how bad he wanted to go a few rounds, to give her what she’d missed out on. She had to admit, it’d be nice to do something with Pres that didn’t involve a body count.

Well he could never give her _that_ look without getting something he wanted. “All right, but no laughing if I trip,” she warned. He was beaming again and if he wasn’t careful he was gunna short out the whole fort. “Learning to dance,” she mused. “Mama would be so proud.” She’d always said that Cherry was missing out. Preston kissed her palm and led her out on the dancefloor— a few more whistles, some clapping for the General— and she braced herself for what she hoped would be a painless process.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so two things to address with this fic and the first is: quick now imagine Preston Garvey teaching the Sole Survivor to swing. You're welcome.
> 
> Second is that Grandma Garvey is based off [this post](http://ghouliissh.tumblr.com/post/145776342885/placentalmammal-placentalmammal-2078-the) only I made the executive decision to not kill the other grandmother, who becomes Grandma Helen. Grandma Garvey is the noisy, swing dancing, whiskey shooting grandma who slaps the back of your head when she sees you being bad, while Grandma Helen makes muffins and sneaks them to you when you're on time out and teaches you how to use make-up when your mom says no. I imagine they travel in between the families in the Eastern Commonwealth, and Preston got lucky that they chose THE Commonwealth (tbh I'm not American though so idk what Duque Iowa even means. Iowa is a state, maybe?). I'm very attached to the idea as you can tell and might do more with it later tbh.
> 
> So okay this was a prompt on tumblr, [my tumblr](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) where you can also prompt me, so long as you're patient and make sure you read my tags (just 'cuz sometimes I'll mention a character I don't wanna write for atm).


End file.
